(CN) — A federal judge Monday required Alabama prison officials to implement sweeping reforms to address the “sky-high rates of suicidality” and “scarce mental-health resources” plaguing the state’s correctional facilities.
Senior U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson penned 646 pages across four rulings issued Monday. The court filings in turn introduced the history of the class-action lawsuit that successfully pinned liability for inmate deaths on the state in 2017, described the changes that the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) has implemented since that liability finding was issued, detailed the relief ordered in the court’s judgment and, finally, codified the injunction in a 46-page order.
In his introductory remarks, Judge Thompson detailed the severity of the conditions that led to the initial lawsuit, which was brought in 2014 by lawyers from the University of Alabama’s Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Prisoners do not receive adequate treatment and out-of-cell time because of insufficient security staff to supervise these activities. They are robbed of opportunities for confidential counseling sessions because there are too few staff to escort them to treatment, forcing providers to hold sessions cell-side,” Thompson wrote. “They decompensate, unmonitored, in restrictive housing units, and they are left to fend for themselves in a culture of violence, easy access to drugs, and extortion that has taken root in ADOC facilities in the absence of an adequate security presence. The resulting sky-high rates of suicidality divert scarce mental-health resources from treatment provision to crisis management, exacerbating the deficiencies in care.”
According to the senior federal judge, one plaintiff inmate, Jamie Wallace, took his own life during the liability phase of the lawsuit, and at least 27 more have died by suicide in Alabama prisons just since the court found ADOC liable for their deaths.
“The case of Jamie Wallace is powerful evidence of the real, concrete and terribly permanent harms that woefully inadequate mental-health care inflicts on mentally ill prisoners in Alabama,” Thompson wrote in that June 2017 order. “Without systemic changes that address these pervasive and grave deficiencies, mentally ill prisoners in ADOC, whose symptoms are no less real than Wallace’s, will continue to suffer.”
Thompson said “persistent and severe shortages of mental-health staff and correctional staff, combined with chronic and significant overcrowding, are the overarching issues” contributing to poor prisoner mental health.
“Judge Thompson’s decision requires ADOC to finally remedy the unconstitutional mental health care identified more than four years ago. This will ensure that the individuals held by ADOC will receive the mental health care they need — and are entitled to — as protected by the Eighth Amendment,” said Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Ashley Austin in an email statement Wednesday.
Among the official policies worsening the problem were the state’s refusal to identify especially vulnerable prisoners, failure to provide individualized treatment plans for prisoners in need, lack of therapy treatments, failure to offer out-of-cell time and hospital care to prisoners, and punitive approach to disciplining mentally ill prisoners who exhibited symptoms of mental illness.
Prison officials would place mentally ill prisoners in segregation from other prisoners for prolonged periods of time without considering how the isolation would worsen their state, Thompson said.
In reviewing how things have changed since 2017, Thompson said the state has taken some “significant steps forward” but noted that, by and large, deficiencies remain. Staffing shortages persist at Alabama prisons in both correctional and mental health care capacities, housing remains restrictive and crowded and not all mental health treatment has been conducted in confidential settings.
Thompson recognized that ADOC “completely overhauled” the inmate intake process and now screens new prisoners for mental health needs, “an encouraging turnabout” even if follow-up documentation has proved lacking in the court’s opinion.
“[Screening] alone is not enough,” Thompson wrote. He also noted that more mental health care officers have been hired, but that the number of correctional staff remains dire.
Thompson gave state officials until July 1, 2025, to meet new staffing requirements, such as reaching at least “3,826 full-time-equivalent correctional staffing positions” to fill “essential” positions.
The court also prescribed regular security checks, more prisoner time spent outside of cells, and regular drills to train staff to respond to suicide attempts. Thompson will conduct status conferences every four months to ensure compliance is on track.
“When the amount of work ADOC must now put into achieving and sustaining adequate compliance is considered, the July 2025 deadline … is just around the corner,” the judge wrote. “Time is of the essence.”
Judge Thompson wrote that he divided the ruling into parts so a monitoring team, which was convened to oversee implementation of these reforms, more easily organize the history of the case and requirements detailed in the court’s orders.
The order is subject to further revision if the plaintiffs or state offer proposals for different relief or monitoring.
“Too many individuals have died because of the state’s failures. We look forward to working with the state and the court to make sure that individuals placed in prison are, at minimum, safe and receive the care they need,” said Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program director James Tucker in an email statement Wednesday.
The ADOC did not respond to an inquiry before press time.
Follow @cucumbermarg
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
